The 12 Days of Christmas
by Rikku9314
Summary: And so the countdown begins...collection of NejiTen oneshots  with a random Sakura story thrown in .
1. Day 1: Arts & Crafts

Tenten adjusted the manger ever so slightly so that it rested evenly between Mary and Joseph.

"There," she said, satisfied.

To Tenten, it was a work of art. Each piece, except for baby Jesus, the only piece left of her childhood nativity set, had been made with her own hands. The set had been one of the few things she had kept when her parents passed away when she was only nine, and it had meant the world to her. Unfortunately, during the shuffle of moving from an apartment to a house, the only thing she had been able to find was the small porcelain doll and manger. To an untrained eye the nativity scene would look like a mess of paper coated in pencil crayon and blots of glue. But to this kunoichi, there was no better thing to be placed upon her fireplace mantel.

"Tenten, I'm home," Neji called from the entry way. Smiling, Tenten turned to greet her husband at the entrance with a quick kiss on the cheek before taking his hand and leading him towards the living room.

"I have something to show you," she said excitedly. Stopping before the fireplace, she threw her hands in the direction of the mantel and sang: "Ta da!"

Her husband blinked and didn't say a word. Then he squinted and leaned forward to get a better look. Two crudely made paper figures smiled down at their ceramic son. A herd of cotton ball sheep rested peacefully behind Jesus while a marshmallow and toothpick shepherd kept a careful watch over his flock. To the left of the scene, three Popsicle stick Magi with paper faces glued to them sat taped to the cardboard that was the stable ground. Small pieces of cut up yellow paper served as straw and were strewn across the cardboard, creating a rather ripped and wrinkled mess. To the right, a cardboard camel, cow and horse stood staring down at the baby. He stared for a full minute before smiling and turning to his wife.

"This is supposed to be a nativity scene?"

"Neji! I spent hours cutting, gluing, drawing, coloring and taping this together! You should be proud I was able to restore it to its former glory! I even included some personal touches." Tenten scowled up at him, arms crossed across her chest.

Neji turned to look at his wife's "art" once more. Smirking, he flicked a yellow painted mini shuriken that hung from the cardboard roof of the stable that served as a replacement for the star.

"It's perfect."


	2. Day 2: Wipeout!

"WAHOO!" Lee cried, racing down the hill on his green crazy carpet at full speed. It was the perfect day for sledding. Not so warm that the sleds, toboggans and crazy carpets stuck in the melting snow, but not so cold that they had to retreat to the warmth of their homes after a mere ten minutes. The sun was peeking from behind light grey puffs of clouds in the sky causing various patches of snow to sparkle in its light.

Neji and Tenten huffed and puffed as they climbed the hill, their wooden sleds trailing behind them, snow crunching beneath their boots. Lee came shooting by them, his cry a perfect example of the Doppler Effect, spraying snow to either side of the hill, including onto a rather un-amused Hyuga. Tenten giggled at him.

"C'mon Neji! I'll race you down from the top!" she cried to him as she began running up the slope. Neji wiped the snow from his face and chased after her, long hair trailing behind him from underneath his light blue toque. Panting, he tried to jog, but realized that no matter how little sense it made, the feat of dragging a sled up a hill through the snow in the winter that quickly became a battle would always exhaust him faster than any mission ever could.

Tenten reached the top before him, readied her sled, and laughed down at Lee as he jumped off his crazy carpet, cheering and waving and encouraging his team mates to follow. Neji met Tenten at the peak and gazed out at the scenery before him. They were outside the village and he had a perfect view of the Hokage's mountain. Trees lined the hill, tall pines that towered over them, sages of the forest. To their right he could see the village's skating pond where he knew the rest of his friends would be slipping and sliding on the ice.

Tenten cleared her throat and he looked down at her. Disheveled oak bangs hid most of her forehead from view underneath her pompom topped black and white hat. Her cherry colored nose that now matched her winter coat gave a new meaning to the name Rudolph. Laying flat on her stomach, legs perpendicular to her body, and white gloved hands gripping the edge of her sled, she tilted her head in the direction of the descending hill.

"Hn," he said, readying himself in the same position.

"On your mark….get set…GO!" They pushed off.

It was a thrill of a ride. Neji felt exhilarated the minute he began speeding down the hill. The wind cut into his face, stinging his eyes and cheeks and causing him to tear up, but the speed he felt was invigorating and quickly made up for it. For once in his life he felt…free. He laughed. Flattening himself against his sled he quickly overcame Tenten. Blurs of green and white sped past him as he raced towards Lee who was serving as their finish line.

"FINISH!" yelled Lee, bringing his arm down as Neji passed him. Smirking Neji looked behind him to gloat at Tenten. Instead of furious frustration on her face her saw her mouth drop and her eyes widen. Neji, curious, turned to look in front of him. Everything went white and then, quite suddenly, black as something hard and yet soft hit him head on.

After a few minutes, the only thing Tenten and Lee could do was laugh at the flailing legs of their teammate as he sought to escape his glistening white prison of a snow bank.


	3. Day 3: Lead Me Home

A raven flew above the smoke filled clearing. Its ebony form blended with the sky above it, making it impossible to notice if not for the beating of its wings and the cry coming from its beak. Circling the meadow, it cawed once, and then flew due north, the chilly winter wind forcing it to retreat to its perch.

The smoke cleared to reveal a lone ninja standing in the middle of a crater, a dying wind billowing his white robes as he returned from a fighting stance to a standing position. Panting, he glanced around him at the bodies that now lay motionless on the ground outside the rims of the crater. He had done his job. His mission was complete. He walked forwards, snow crunching underneath his shoes as he picked up his cloak that lay over the body of one of his fallen opponents and tied it around his shoulders. His gaze softened, sadness overtaking him. The peaceful face of the enemy that lay on the ground before him stared up at him, eyes accusing him. On such a cool winter's night, he had regretted tainting the stillness of the world with his battle. Dots of blood splattered on the snow had now made the white substance impure. But it had been his duty and he had fulfilled it.

Raising his head he looked at the sky above him. Thousands of stars dotted a navy backdrop and a pearl orb bathed him in an eerie yet beautiful glow. But it was to the north that he was looking. Straight in front of him sat the jewel of the skies: The North Star. His heart ached as he remembered that night…

_"…and so, if you ever get lost you just have to look to the north and follow it! See? That one right there…" Tenten bit her lip as she scanned the sky, then with an "Ah! There!" she pointed to the North Star._

_ Neji however was skeptical. "Tenten, that's the North Star. If I'm to the north, west, or east of the village and I start to follow it I'll be heading in the wrong direction."_

_ "No you won't because it's my star," she said. While still gazing at it, Tenten smiled. Neji stared at her. It was then that the snow had begun to fall, small flakes floating gently down from the heavens. Each flake that landed on Tenten's deep blue coat became a star in itself and it wasn't long until her coat had become a replica of the sky above them._

"_And if you follow my star, you'll always find yourself coming home to me." She turned to leave, not giving him a chance to answer, and walked away, silent as the celestials above them. His eyes followed her until she disappeared from his sight, her slim figure evaporating into the darkness around them._

Neji's jaw set and he looked straight ahead. "I'm coming, Tenten," he said as he slowly began walking north.

"Lead me home…"


	4. Day 4: Frosty

"Thumpity thump thump, thumpity thump thump, look at Frosty go…" Tenten sang to herself as she got down on her hands and knees and began rolling ivory flakes into a ball. "…thumpity thump thump, thumpity thump thump, over the hills of snow!"

"Tenten, what are you doing?" Tenten looked up to see her stoic team mate standing gazing down at her. He was smirking at her, and she suddenly realized how very ridiculous she must have looked, being on all fours in the middle of their training field. Their plan had been to meet at two o'clock to train, but Tenten had arrived early to get in some warm up exercises before Neji arrived. She had however been distracted upon her arrival by the untouched blanket of snow that lay in front of her. It had been too much to resist.

"I'm building a snowman, Neji, what does it look like?" She blushed, slightly embarrassed, and looked away as she continued rolling the head for the top of her snowman.

"I can see that Tenten, but why?" Neji continued, walking along beside her as she crawled on the field floor, the sphere growing bigger by minute. He glanced over to his left to see two more orbs of snow, one slightly smaller and sitting on top of a larger one. Amazingly they were flawlessly proportional to each other and Neji was reminded at how when Tenten truly set her mind to something, nothing less than perfection would be the result.

"Well I got here early…and the snow was the perfect consistency…and…I felt like it." She shrugged and satisfied with the size of the ball, picked it up with a soft grunt and carried it over to the other two. She placed it gently on top, and then patted it on its sides to even it out. Standing back, she looked at her handy work, nodding.

"Now it just needs a face…"

Neji walked over to the snowman and, with his index finger, poked two holes for eyes, another for a nose, and dragged his finger from left to right to give it a mouth. Tenten frowned. Their snowman's mouth looked a little too much like the way Neji's mouth had been set before their first attempt at the chunin exams. Even though she knew that boy was long gone, it still bothered her. Stepping forward and taking her own index finger she added two upward turned arcs on either side of the mouth to make the snowman smile. Tenten grinned.

"What should we name him?" asked Neji, humoring her.

"Frosty. What else?"


	5. Day 5: Cookie Decorating

How Neji had ended up in this situation he did not know. He didn't know why his girlfriend had asked him to help, or why he had agreed, or how he had managed to stay in the uncomfortably cold kitchen for so long. All he knew is that they were a mess, and that he was enjoying every minute of it.

His clothes and face were covered in flour, splotches of cookie dough splattering his once clean shirt. He was sure his hair was a mess from losing the battle with the oven door that had refused to open at his hands' command and he had icing in places he didn't' even know he had.

The kitchen wasn't in better shape. The counters had confectioners' sugar spread out over them, hints of green and red frosting accented clearly in the sea of white. Salt dotted the floor in little pools where Tenten had missed the bowl and managed to pour it on the ground instead.

Half an hour earlier, to Neji's amazement, three things in the room had been spotless. Two had been the cookie sheets that sat in front of him, golden figures of snowmen, stars, gingerbread men, Christmas trees and sleighs baked to soft sugar cookie perfection. And the other had been Tenten. Neji didn't know how it had happened but in the trial of the mixer handle flying off, the bin of flour falling on the floor, and the sugar bag spilling half its contents into the sink, Tenten's jeans and red shirt had remained as clean as they had been before they had begun the Christmas baking. It had irritated him, and baffled him, but he had long since learned that Tenten, even unintentionally, always managed to surprise him.

"Alright, I think the icing is finally ready!" Tenten had proudly held up two bowls for Neji to see, one with bright lime colored icing, the other containing vivid red icing. He had nodded to her and she had smiled, setting the bowls on the table in front of the cookie sheets. "I'll take this tray, you can take the other," she had ordered him. Sighing, Neji had picked up a butter knife and a gingerbread man shaped cookie and started to spread the green over the surface. This was going to take awhile. So why not make it fun?

Only thirty minutes later, both of them were covered from head to toe with the thick, sweet, spreadable topping, the red and green mixing together to create an unattractive shade for which there was no name. Tenten was lying on the floor, laughing and holding her sides, her nose, cheeks and ears smeared with green and red. Neji was laying next to her, chuckling quietly, his hands completely coated in the frosting. Anyone walking in would have put two and two together at once and realized that Neji had attacked her with the icing spatula that had been in the bowl and that now sat next to him on the floor

Tenten's laughter quieted to a soft giggle as Neji smiled and sat up, half sitting, and half lying. He turned to her and placed a hand on the other side of her body. Smirking mischievously, he leaned down and licked a small drop of icing off of Tenten's nose. She grinned and blushed at him, before wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down for a passionate kiss.

On the table, the cookies sat undecorated.


	6. Day 6: Life's Little Trials

"Tenten, the tree is NEVER going to fit. You have to accept that. I don't even know why I let you buy this when I knew it wasn't going to get through the doorway," Neji groaned from the hallway as he held the stump of the coniferous tree off the ground with Lee at his side. His green clad team mate nodded slowly in agreement.

"Come ON, you guys just aren't trying hard enough! On the count of three…" Tenten called from her side in the apartment where she stood ready to pull the treetop.

"One…two….THREE!" Neji and Lee grunted as they pushed against the tree trunk, hearing Tenten groan from the other side as she braced her feet against the floor and pulled the tip. For a few seconds, it looked as though their efforts would be in vain but with a creak and a moan and a final pull from the kunoichi, the tree popped through the door way and landed on the floor with a crash. They heard a sound similar to that of glass breaking that they assumed was the hailstorm of pine needles raining onto the floor and onto the three ninjas, covering them in tiny green points. Coughing as the dust settled, the two men heard their team mate grunt as they noticed that the top half of the tree lay on top of her.

"Tenten, are you alright?" Lee cried as he rushed forward to lift the tree off of her with Neji's help.

"I'm fine, Lee, just a little tree crushing my body." The boys gently raised the tree up and off of her and Tenten crawled out from under as the two men carried it over to the tree stand she had waiting by her fireplace. Placing it gently in the center, Tenten stood back to look at the position of the great pine.

"Over to the left….no, stop! Too far, go back to the right a bit…good…STOP! Okay, now tilt it forward a bit….no not THAT much, go back!" Tenten ordered Neji and Lee from her spot in front of the couch. The boys moved the tree accordingly but apparently never had the position just right. It took them a good twenty minutes before the tree was to her liking and she screwed the braces into the stump.

They stepped back and examined the tree. It was a beautiful piece of nature. Its body formed a perfect cone with neatly trimmed branches and a tip placed perfectly in the middle where the star would be placed later in the evening during the decorating. Tenten smiled at her boys and then turned around to grab the ornaments that had been sitting on the floor. She froze.

"Aww…." she whined. Neji and Lee turned around.

On the ground where they had pulled the tree through the doorway laid an ocean of broken red and green glass spread out from underneath an overturned box surrounded by a bed of pine needles.


	7. Day 7: The Ugly Duckling

It began with an ugly duckling.

The pink haired girl was crying at the road that lay in front of her, one fork turning left, one turning right. She knew that she would have to make a choice. One would be full of laughter, smiles, love and joy. One would be full of tears, screams, pain and sorrow. The wind pushed her from behind, forcing her onto the left path. Cries of "Forehead, forehead!" shrieked at her from the sides of the path, gnarled branches reaching out to scratch her cheeks. Betrayal met her at each bend and the little girl wept to be alone on the path, bare feet, bleeding and sore, stepping out onto the cold stones. When she could go no further, she collapsed to the ground, curling up into a ball. Raising her head to stare at the path ahead of her, she heard the cries of help. She heard them and knew that they were coming from someone close to her. But she could not reach. She stretched her hand out, grasping for something, anything to help her continue on to the aid of this person. But nothing came. She was useless.

She crawled slowly on hands and knees, defeated.

* * *

It was five years later. Childhood had passed and adolescence sat before her, beckoning to her with its knotted fingers. She stepped warily onto the path. She was met with darkness and plummeting self confidence, hurt and grief covering her like a cold blanket. A voice in her head screamed at her.

"Turn back, turn back…" it said. Tears streamed down her eyes. She wanted to. She wanted so badly to return to a place of warmth. But she realized that she had none. No place where she felt wanted, no place where she felt needed, for the last path she had traveled had been no better than this. She was always watching from the background, always needing protection, and the two people in her life that she felt she could finally protect, that she felt could finally watch her, had ended up making her feel unnecessary. She was an extra, tagging along in the backdrop of a scene far greater than any where her presence was needed. One of these people now had hurt her, left her, and abandoned her, leaving her to a fate destined to be lived out alone. And in her blindness, she did not see the one person who was desperately trying to pull her to her feet as she fell to the ground once more, broken and conquered.

The ugly duckling wandered.

* * *

Five more years passed. She now stood panting and sweating in the snow of a winter's eve, her final destination reached. The path had ended, adulthood now before her. The snow fell and settled upon her. The ground was already covered in a light sheet, suppressing the blades of grass beneath it. Above her, a full moon shone upon the clearing. It was a midnight clear. It was Christmas day. And it was this day that she received the greatest gift of all, for she had been granted the gift of sight.

She saw in the reflection of the red eyes in front of her, not the scared, useless little girl she had once been. No, the transformation had begun. And she now realized that she could not be a failure anymore. Not to the one person, to that one knuckleheaded man, that had finally made her realize, that if she tried, she could be something…someone…great. She rushed the raven haired man in front of her. She heard frantic cries of warning from behind her, from her friends, whom, she realized, had been pulling her, even dragging her along her path all these years. But she had been too sightless, too ignorant to see it. She would not fail them now. For the transformation was complete.

With a final battle cry she reached the man. With a final scream he thrust his sword through her. With a final gasp she drew her last breath. Blood splattered the snow. And with a final smile she crumpled to the earth.

It ended with a swan.


	8. Day 8: A Shinobi's Snowball Fight

"Give it up, Hyuga! You can't win!"

Tenten sat with her back to the snow fort, feeling the cold snow seeping through her winter coat. In her hand sat a perfectly round ball of snow. To her left sat a pile as tall as her knees of dozens more. She was ready. And she knew her opponent was low on ammunition.

"That's what YOU think, Tenten…" came a whisper from above her. With a gasp she looked up only to be pelted in the face with cold, hard snow. Shrieking, she jumped from her fort and chased down the white clad man that was running away towards his own fortress. Raising her hand, she threw the snowball at him and hit him square between the shoulders. Neji disappeared in poof of smoke.

"A SHADOW CLONE? Neji, you cheater! We agreed we wouldn't use any ninja techniques!" the kunoichi screamed at him as she retreated to her fort, ducking behind it just in time as the real Neji sent a snowball flying towards her.

"All's fair in war, Tenten!" came the muted reply from across the battleground.

"Oh is that so? Well let's see what you think of this…" Raising her hands in a seal, Tenten whispered "Explode," and immediately, dozens of tiny exploding tags detonated on Neji's snow fort, destroying the meager shelter. Peeking from overtop her stronghold, she giggled at Neji's furious glare before rushing forward with a battle cry, arms full of snowballs, and began throwing them at him.

"Rotation!" Neji spun in his defensive circle, deflecting the useless spheres and then ran at Tenten. Dropping her ammunition, Tenten whipped out a scroll she had hidden in her sleeve and threw it open, biting her thumb and bringing forth her various ninja tools. She hurtled them at him but he evaded them easily and tackled her to the ground, the two of them landing in an explosion of snow.

When the snow settled, Tenten found herself trapped, wrists pinned down, with Neji sitting on top of her. Leaning down to her ear he whispered, "Game over.…"

Tenten smiled and whispered "Kai…" Neji grinned as Tenten's bombs went off. They sent waves of snow on top of him as Tenten squirmed out of his grasp and jumped clear before he was completely buried in a tsunami of snow.

But he didn't stay down for long. Seconds later, he emerged from the snow only to come face to face with Tenten bouncing a white ball in her hand.

"I win," she grinned before throwing the melting sphere at his face.


	9. Day 9: Isn't it Beautiful?

"Neji, you're doing it wrong," Tenten said looking at Neji's hands. "See, you have to hold them like this…" She took the scissors from his hands and showed him how to hold them. "If you hold them like this then your cuts will be nice and even and straight." She handed the scissors back to her frustrated team mate before returning to her own project.

Neji scowled at the piece of white paper in front of him. Today they were participating in an activity at which he was not master of: making paper snowflakes.

It wasn't that Neji was frustrated at his incapability. Rather, he was frustrated at Tenten's capability. It seemed that no matter what he did his snowflakes ended up coming out like a piece of randomly cut up paper and hers came out looking like the beautiful flakes they were trying to re-create, and he couldn't understand how or why she managed to do it.

"Tenten, let's just face it. I'm never going to get this," he said, setting the scissors on the table. Small pieces of white littered the top of it, all of them bits of what were now disfigured sheets of paper. In a pile to his right sat a stack of failures Neji couldn't bear to look at.

"Does that mean you're giving up, Hyuga? I thought you never gave up." She looked at him from beneath her eyelashes and smirked. Blushing slightly, he turned his face away.

"I'm not giving up. I just know when I've been beaten and there's no way I'm ever going to succeed at this." He got up to leave the table but before he could, Tenten grabbed his wrist and turned him around, slamming him back into his chair.

"Uh uh, you're not getting out that easily. Here, I'll help you." And with that she placed the scissors and folded paper back into his hands, and then, taking her own hands, began turning the scissors for him. They weaved left and right, turning the paper over and around, and before long, she had stopped her confusing motions, taken the scissors from him and told him to open the folded paper. Unfolding it carefully so as not to rip it, Neji stared at the snowflake. It was perfect in every way, diamonds and squares and pointed tips protruding from the ends made it look as real as any snowflake ever could.

"See? Look at what we made…isn't it beautiful?" Tenten grinned at him and then picked up her own scissors to continue making decorations.

Neji stared at her, her bangs falling in front of her auburn eyes. And in an inaudible whisper replied, "Yes…you are."


	10. Day 10: Overdose

"AHOO!" Neji let out a great sneeze as he and his team mates walked home in the late evening of a Saturday, trotting through the snow that layered the streets of the village.

"Bless you, Neji," Lee politely said to his team mate, glancing over from beside Tenten at the oak haired man that was rubbing his nose on his sleeve.

"Are you feeling okay? Not catching a cold are you?" Tenten teased from beside him.

"I'm fine. I'll see you both on Monday for training." Neji waved to them as they continued walking down the street to their respective homes. With a sigh he retired to his bed, welcoming the sleep that came.

It had started out as a slight tingle the next morning; an annoying itch in his nose that Neji found he couldn't shake. Eventually it had progressed to an irritating tickle that threatened to have him sneeze whenever he inhaled. By mid-afternoon the tickle had spread from his nose down to his throat, and eventually down to his lungs. By dinner that evening, Neji Hyuga was sick.

Neji was horrified. For in the fifteen years of his life, he had never caught a cold. He had had upset stomachs, fevers, and even life threatening injuries from his many missions but nothing, in all his teenage years, had made him feel the grogginess and achiness he was now experiencing all over his body. It threatened to debilitate him. But he was after all a Hyuga and even as his throat felt raw, his lungs heaved with coughs and his nose ran, there was no way he was going to let some miniscule little virus control his life.

And that was how Neji found himself staring at the label of the medicine bottle he now held in his hands Monday morning.

"Take three teaspoons of syrup every four hours as needed…" he read aloud. "Only three teaspoons? That must be some kind of precaution." Turning the bottle over in his hands, he opened the cap and instead of using a spoon, brought the bottle to his lips and took a long swig of the grape flavored medicine….

He met Tenten for training later that morning, the empty bottle tucked safely away in his knapsack. Neji was almost euphoric. He couldn't sense any of the symptoms anymore. The sore throat was gone, the irksome itch in his nose had evaporated and he hadn't coughed since drinking the syrup. That stuff was the work of miracles. In his intoxicated state, Neji did not think to wonder why, if his symptoms were gone, was he still so groggy? Why was he wobbling with each step he took to the center of the training field?

He got into his gentle fist battle pose and waited as Tenten pulled a scroll from behind her, spreading it out over her arms.

"Ready?" she called from the other side of the clearing. He nodded and she bit her thumb, summoning a dozen kunai and sending them at her team mate. Neji began to secrete chakra from his body and to spin in a circle but halfway through his turn, he faltered. His vision flickered and he swayed on his feet. He tumbled backwards into the snow, narrowly missing the kunai as they flew over his head as he fell.

"Neji! Hey, Neji! You alright?" Tenten ran over to him and kneeled at his side as his head cleared. He smiled. The symptoms were still gone…everything was fine. He looked at the kunoichi above him, and smiled even more.

"Has anyone ever told you you have beautiful eyes, Tenten?" he said as she helped him into a sitting position. She stopped and stared at him incredulously.

"Good grief Neji, what have you been drinking?"

"Cold syrup…" he answered softy.

"I see, and just how much of this medicine did you take?"

"All of it…" he said, not sensing the problem as he played with the snow beneath his hand, the ecstasy the medicine was inducing still very much present.

"All of it?" Tenten cried. Then, sighing, she pulled his arm over her shoulder and wrapped her own around his waist, pulling him to his feet before dragging him in the direction of the hospital as the snow began to fall from the grey haze of clouds above them.

"Such beautiful, beautiful eyes…" he told her again before slipping into an almost catatonic state.

"No more cold medicine for you, Hyuga…." Tenten muttered under her breath.


	11. Day 11: Paper, Ribbons, Bows

"I….can't….get it!" Tenten screamed and flung the roll of tape at the opposite wall in her small apartment. She groaned and leaned back against the bottom of her couch. She and Neji were sitting on the floor, and had been so for the past hour, busy wrapping presents in the various papers, ribbons and bows that were now strewn across the carpet. Or rather, Neji had. She had merely attempted to.

While Neji had been successful in completing the wrapping of his gifts, each box perfectly finished with silver, red, gold, and green ribbons and bows, Tenten had been far less triumphant over the mound of gifts that sat void of paper on her coffee table. At her feet sat the present for Lee she had been trying to wrap for the last sixty minutes, a box containing a set of handmade leg weights to use for his training. Tenten had tried again and again to wrap the gift in such a way that it did not look as though a toddler had decided to play arts and crafts with it, but she had been thus far unsuccessful. Ripped and crumpled wrapping paper designed with a pattern of Christmas trees covered the box awkwardly, pieces of tape placed at random edges to hold it all together. It was practically unidentifiable as anything other than a ball of festive paper. Neji stared at it as he returned from the other side of the room with the retrieved tape, Tenten huffing and pouting, arms crossed over her chest.

"Tenten, I'm sorry to say that it does not even remotely resemble a present…any…more…." He trailed off as Tenten glared at him.

"I _know_, Neij. Thanks for stating the obvious." She looked sadly over at the other presents that were sitting naked on the table. "How am I going to get these done…." She looked over at Neji's neatly stacked pile of gifts, each one decorated to the point where they were works of art. Smiling sweetly, she said, "Hey, Neji?" He looked back at her as he placed a sparkly silver bow on top of his last present. "Would you…?"

"Hn," he replied, picking up a stuffed bear Tenten had bought for Hinata, placing it in a box, and beginning to wrap it.

"Thanks," she smiled at him. Her smile disappeared as she looked back at Lee's gift. She heaved a heavy sigh. "Oh well…it's going to get ripped up anyways."


	12. Day 12: I'm Here

It was Christmas Eve and seventeen year old Tenten lay crying in the snow. The moon was covered by the grey clouds that were sheltering the village from its rays. The rest of the village was sleeping peacefully, a comfortable silence settling over the people who lived there. Tonight was the night most looked forward to by every person in Konoha, but for this kunoichi it was the most horrible day she could imagine.

She could not remember much. The only words she could pick up before sinking to the floor in her home were "didn't make it". "I'm sorry", the shinobi had told her over and over, helping her to her feet, and leading her to the couch. But "I'm sorry" wasn't going to bring her parents back and she had wrung herself out of the man's grasp. She had run. For hours it seemed. And finally it had been too much for her and she had fallen face down into the snow, tears freezing on her face.

She lay there now, sobbing, cold, and alone. She didn't know how long she had been there. She didn't remember how she had gotten there. The only things that seemed to be running through her mind were memories; her fathers' warm smile when she came back from the academy with a good grade; her mother's soft hands as they brushed out the long auburn hair that Tenten refused to wear down. It was a gift, her mother had said, to have such beautiful tresses, but Tenten had always hid it, wearing it up in buns, believing it to be a curse. Too girly, she had said.

Tenten raised her head up from the snow, angry tears flowing. She stood up and stared at the sky, eyebrows clenched together as she frowned up at the clouds. Finally she screamed and pulled the hair ties from her buns, long hair flowing down her back.

"You PROMISED!" she shrieked. "You lied! You promised you'd come back!" Wracking sobs shook her body and she sank once more to the ground. She rocked back and forth, arms hugging her body. And she sat there. She sat there crying until she had no more tears to shed. Eventually, exhaustion had overtaken her and she had collapsed into the snow.

"Tenten," a voice called from above her. She stirred. Why was it so cold? "Tenten," the voice repeated. It seemed familiar to her. Someone was shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes and saw only snow and ebony boots that she knew all too well. She sat up and stared at Neji. He was kneeling next to her, his hand on her shoulder. He looked concerned as she glanced around her surroundings, trying to figure out how she had gotten there. And then she remembered. Tears filled the corners of her eyes, and she looked back at her team mate, pleading with him to release her from this nightmare. He shook his head.

Tenten broke and she fell into his waiting arms, her head lying on his lap. She had thought she had nothing left to cry, but fresh tears spilled out and onto his coat and pants. She clenched his jacket in her fist, clawing at him to bring him closer, to comfort her. And he held her.

"I know," he said, lifting her up from his lap to his chest. "I know…." And they sat there. They were two frozen statues sitting in the snow in early dawn. They sat there for hours. And finally Tenten's sobs were suppressed to hiccups as she grew to have nothing left in her. Her body had gone numb. Silent and still, she whispered to him.

"They're gone…they're gone…."

"Tenten," he said. She raised her eyes to look at him and was surprised to find tears in his lavender eyes. Lifting her chin with his finger, he brought her lips to his as the warm tears fell from his eyes and splashed onto her cheeks. Neither of them moved. Finally they broke apart and he hugged her close once more.

"I'm here."


End file.
